T Plus 3

Pursuant to my last blog post, I wasn’t going to let today slip by without at least acknowledging the milestone, T+3.

T+3.  Three weeks.  21 days ago, almost to the minute now as I am typing this line.  I still tear up every time I think about it.  Three weeks since Father Michel Pavez of St. Michael the Archangel Orthodox Church in Beaumont suggested I revisit adopting Lazarus as my patron saint.  Funny guy, Father Michel.

I’m not sure when I will be able to move the weekly anniversary to the back of my mind.  (Perhaps I will adopt the “new mother” strategy and start talking in terms of months.)  But I am sure the eleven regular readers of this blog are probably tiring of hearing of COVID and ventilators and steroids and angel nurses and miracle-working doctors.  So I am going to do my best, beyond this post today, to neutralize those topics and move to discourse more on general life, or for goodness sake, anything else.  I live for the day when we talk about this period in world history as a bump in the road, a landmark in our past but nothing more.  I am ready to get this stupid virus out of our collective mind, so I am going to start where I can control it…with myself.

What that means, though, is a wholesale flush of the whirlwind of thoughts regarding COVID and its spread, treatment options, defensive tactics and effectiveness, etc., that continue to run through my mind.  And that, my friends, is quite a volume.

I should start with a disclaimer.  Of so many things that I am currently incapable of doing, thinking is not one of them.  I have an awful lot of time on my hands to ponder.  I am not talking about anything in particular…I just have plenty of hours to simply think and scrutinize and head-scratch and wonder.  Of course, the ’rona is one of the multitude of topics.  So yeah, I have quite the commentary all mashed up in my brain.  Obviously, I have my opinions.  But there are facts, too, that I believe bear discussing.  And no, I am not talking about the efficacy of vaccines or WHO mortality statistics.  I’m talking about real tangible facts that you and I can see and experience firsthand.  You’re going to get both from me, fact and opinion.  Whether you agree or want to debate either is up to you.

It really doesn’t matter if I am the world’s biggest conspiracy theorist or the quintessential human sheep, it is a fact that I was diagnosed with a COVID infection which ultimately manifested itself into severe dual-lobe pneumonia, finally culminating with my miracle moment.  No need for further discussion there.  It is also a fact that I find myself on the wide side of the statistics, a proud member of the 97%-plus club…a survivor.  What doesn’t show there is the narrow margin by which I ended up in that club.  I got way closer to another realm than I would ever have thought possible when I showed up at the ER.  Moreover, in the past week, two folks I know personally who were hospitalized at the same time as myself have lost their own battles with that stupid virus.  Maybe COVID is a big new world order conspiracy.  All I do know is I was really sick from something, and it damn near killed me.  So please, take it from someone who has seen both sides…when you discuss the survival rates and responses and preventive measures and all of the factors, consider the “real” people who have been impacted.  The numbers don’t do them justice.

Here’s another fact.  At ground level—like the local hospitals and ER’s and ICU’s—the critical care teams are running themselves ragged trying to keep those survival rates as high as they are.  Doctors and nurses and support staff and first responders are, quite literally, putting themselves at the highest level of risk to ensure that patients receive the best chance of pulling through.  And those folks don’t have the luxury of second-guessing the CDC, WHO, NIH, or any of the other esteemed acronyms.  They simply do their jobs.  To question the legitimacy or reality of the virus or its impact is an insult to them.

For balance, let me offer an opinion, one that has not changed since the advent of all things supposedly preventive of the spread of the virus.  The public mask mandate is useless.  You are welcome to disagree and debate, but considering there is absolutely no way to prove one way or another the relative effectiveness of said mandate, it’s a waste of breath (or text, as it were) on your and my part to engage the subject.  I am a practical person, though.  Maybe if the deployment of masks was uniform and consistent or maybe if an enforceable standard was maintained, I might feel differently.  But that just a couple of the “maybe’s” to consider.  Now that’s not to say that there are no small microcosms where rigid adherence to a mask policy might actually show some statistically significant impact to the transmission of the virus—take for instance the rather militaristic approach employed in the Houston medical center—but I am speaking about the general public mandate.

I opine here, as well, separately but most assuredly related to my last thought:  the isolation approach bears quite a bit of merit.  My opinion here has shifted considerably since all of this mess began.  Way back in the earliest part of The Year That Shall Not Be Mentioned, when we all were eye-rolling in assuming that we were looking at another swine flu or bird flu scare, the suggestion from officials to voluntarily separate ourselves from friends and family was laughable.  Completely countercultural, too, here in the South.  (I will refrain from any comment that might suggest that it was far easier for Yankees to distance themselves than it was for us below the Mason-Dixon Line, but in my humble opinion it probably was.  I’ve been around enough Yankees.  Cue the hate mail.)  Hindsight is, of course, perfect…as I look back on things, I realize that had we been equipped to do so, the isolation approach might have borne great fruit.  Unfortunately—yes, I will admit to being part of this group—the perceived majority of folks still wanted to maintain some sense of “normal” and couldn’t let go of physically shopping or picking up dinner or any number of other in-person activities.  I have tremendous empathy for that attitude; like I said, it was my own.  But I believe had we, collectively and in force, gone into full short-term hibernation, we might have seen some flattening of the curve.

Back to facts, and a sad one, at that.  I count among my friends and family several medical doctors and affiliated health professionals.  My little spa vacation allowed me to get to know quite a few more.  To a person, a common theme that became painfully evident as I queried about my own condition and treatment is just how little we know and understand about the Wuhan Flu.  (Sorry, I am tiring of the standard naming convention…I have to call it something else for a while.)  At the infection and initial onset stages, for the most part, we have a good grasp.  However, the predictability of the individual response as infection and symptoms progress is all over the map.  To quote one very close friend, a local primary care physician, “You would think that increasing data set size would serve to help us become more confident in our analyses and treatment, but this bug just generates even more uncertainty with each case.”  Octogenarians in nursing homes trudge through the illness with a bit of a runny nose and some coughing, while a seemingly healthy 35-year-old woman with no preexisting concerns succumbs to severe pneumonia and passes away.  I said in a previous post that this bug doesn’t play fairly, and it doesn’t.  It’s dirty, like Miami University back in the day.

Load your weapons.  This is an opinion that is going to draw fire no matter which side of the debate I land on.  Regarding the series of events leading up to and culminating with what ended up being a joyful March 9 for me and my family, I never want to have to consider putting them through that again.  I am universally an avoider of pharmaceutical solutions and generally anti-vaccine, in particular the most recent players in that field.  When it comes to this bug specifically, though, my personal trial has forced me to reevaluate.  For one thing, those same friends and family in the medical field I mentioned previously have strongly encouraged it.  And if the initial efficacy numbers are anywhere in the realm of believable, a well-vaccinated population might very well send corona the way of polio and measles.

Respectfully, however, I understand and completely support those who hesitate or refuse to be vaccinated.  What is out there right now is not FDA-approved, but approved only for emergency use.  We don’t have complete transparency as to what is being injected; honestly, even if we did, I probably wouldn’t completely understand it all anyway.  My hope is that, regardless of where people fall on the gradient of decisions, the combination of vaccines and distancing and other applicable measures will be enough to suppress and effectively eliminate it.

Finally, one more very strong opinion.  So strong that I consider it fact.  It’s a two-parter, as well:

1. This bug didn’t magically appear and spread due to some poor Chinese sap undercooking his dinner bat.  This was engineered and either intentionally or accidentally released.  The behavior of the Chinese government as international health officials have tried to gain access to investigate seems to indicate that to me.  And this may sound a bit conspiratorial—what doesn’t anymore—but the fact that two companies were able to develop and roll out almost unbelievably effective vaccines in such a short time, well that sounds like they might have been working with a template at least and not starting from scratch.
2. Both the current Presidential administration as well as that of the previous, along with both houses of the legislative branch, should be ashamed for leveraging the pandemic as they did.  I realize we are, in large part, dealing with societal bottom-feeders in our legislators and other public officials.  But I toss it back up to the top of this post…real people are being impacted.  Real people are dying because of this bug.  And real people already don’t trust their government and their leaders.  It is sickening that we have allowed—in fact, elected—these losers to run our country.

Look, I know not everyone will agree with what I’ve put down here.  Hopefully, this is the last you will hear from me on it.  (I have plenty of other random thoughts to toss, and I am ready to put make COVID like Lubbock…in my rearview mirror.)  But it is a tremendous release to just do a brain dump.  It’s refreshing.

I just hope in a few months we can look back on it all and maybe smile and laugh a little, because up until now, I am finding very little humor.

God bless you all!  I look forward to hearing from you!!!

Like and share below!!!